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Fujica Compact Deluxe: unsung rangefinder?

I just bought fairly cheaply a not-bad-condition Fujica Compact Deluxe.
It's a nice, solid, fully manual (but with shutter-priority Auto setting
when a battery is in place) rangefinder from, what?, the mid-1970s?

I prefer rangefinders to
SLRs and have been a Canonet fan for twenty years. I had a Fujica a while
back and really liked the right thumbwheel
focus action. That model (just "Fujica" I think) had an f/2.8 lens and
wasn't as top-of-the-line as the Deluxe which has a Fujinon f/1.8 lens.
That's just a notch slower than my Canonets. But then I paid about a
third of what Canonets are going for in 2005. It appears to be a
six-element lens, but I cannot be sure. And I haven't actually put any
film through it yet, so I can't say how good it really is.

Except for some obvious stuff (thumbwheel focus, lower right thumb film
winder) it appears to be similar to the Minolta HiMatic 7Sii, but I'm not
sure -- I've never held a 7sii in my hands. More to the point, it is in
that class of good rangefinders made 25 or 30 years ago at the end of the
RF boom. Just the same, unlike Canonet, 7sii and a few others, I don't
see much written about the Fujica Compact Deluxe -- does anyone know when
it was produced?

In article ,
wrote:
Hello Philip, I am looking to buy a Fujica Compact Deluxe if you may consider
selling yours?

yet another moron using google groups. did you even look at the date
that was posted?
On Thursday, February 10, 2005 at 10:20:17 AM UTC+10, Philip Hiscock wrote:
I just bought fairly cheaply a not-bad-condition Fujica Compact Deluxe.
It's a nice, solid, fully manual (but with shutter-priority Auto setting
when a battery is in place) rangefinder from, what?, the mid-1970s?

I prefer rangefinders to
SLRs and have been a Canonet fan for twenty years. I had a Fujica a while
back and really liked the right thumbwheel
focus action. That model (just "Fujica" I think) had an f/2.8 lens and
wasn't as top-of-the-line as the Deluxe which has a Fujinon f/1.8 lens.
That's just a notch slower than my Canonets. But then I paid about a
third of what Canonets are going for in 2005. It appears to be a
six-element lens, but I cannot be sure. And I haven't actually put any
film through it yet, so I can't say how good it really is.

Except for some obvious stuff (thumbwheel focus, lower right thumb film
winder) it appears to be similar to the Minolta HiMatic 7Sii, but I'm not
sure -- I've never held a 7sii in my hands. More to the point, it is in
that class of good rangefinders made 25 or 30 years ago at the end of the
RF boom. Just the same, unlike Canonet, 7sii and a few others, I don't
see much written about the Fujica Compact Deluxe -- does anyone know when
it was produced?